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Thursday, June 21, 2012

E.H.U.D.: Part 1, Chapter 5

Edgar Latterndale
closed his eyes and sighed. He had been trying for nearly ten
minutes to get his bow-tie figured out, and now his concentration was
broken.

The sound of heavy
footfalls in the hall came closer, bringing with them more shouts of
“Dad! Dad!”

The footfalls
abruptly stopped as Ethan, clutching a toy in one hand and a severed
leg in the other, burst into the room. “Dad, the leg broke!”

Edgar ignored his
son and continued to work with his tie. It was time Ethan learned
that the world didn’t revolve around him and his little problems;
answering him would merely egg him on.

“Can you fix him,
please? I think it just needs glue or something. Please? You’ve
got time before you have to go.”

There! The tie was
finally fixed in place. Edgar gave it one final tug to adjust it—

“C’mon, Dad!
It’s my favorite toy!”

The tie slipped and
came undone.

Edgar sighed and
dropped his hands in resignation. “Ethan,” he said, barely
containing his frustration, “Tonight is really important at work,
and I don’t have time to deal with your toy tonight. Okay?”

“Can I go with
you? Please? Uncle Isaac’ll be there, right?”

Remain calm…
“Tonight’s a grown-up night. You need to stay here with your
nanny and try to get your homework done. Why don’t you go and see
if she can fix your toy, okay?”

Ethan sighed
through his nose and dropped his head. “Yeah, I guess…”

Edgar forced a
smile. “Good.”

Ethan turned and
walked out of the room and Edgar returned to his tie.

He twisted it a few
times, almost got it, then heard the footfalls begin again.

“Dad, Emily says
that she can’t—“

Edgar whirled on
his son. “Goddamn it, I don’t have time to worry about your
stupid toy!”

Ethan stared up at
him, his eyes wide and showing confusion. Then he dropped the toy
and began to cry.

There wasn’t time
for this… “Amanda!” Edgar tuned out the crying and returned
to the tie.

A moment later his
wife stuck her head through the bedroom door; for once, she was
dressed and ready before her husband was. “What is—“ She
spotted Ethan. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” She hurried forward
and embraced him.

“Get him out of
here, will you? I can’t concentrate with him running around and
crying.”

“My toy broke and
I asked dad to fix it but he didn’t hear me so I asked again and he
told me to ask Emily and she told me to ask Dad and he yelled at me
and—“

“Shh, shh. Come
on, let’s go and see if we can fix this, okay?” Amanda led Ethan
out of the room.

Five minutes later
Edgar had finally gotten the bow tied, and was putting in his
cuff-links when the bedroom door opened.

“I can’t
believe you.”

Edgar glanced into
the mirror and saw Amanda standing just inside the door, a vision of
beauty with blond braids and a flowing red gown. “And what can’t
you believe?”

“The way you
treated your son! He was just asking for help and—“

“Now was not a
good time! We’re going to be late as it is and I couldn’t take
the time to—“

“You could have
explained it to him!”

Edgar snapped the
final cuff-link in place and headed towards the bathroom. “And
what would that teach him? That anytime he wants to interrupt we’ll
just drop everything and explain the world to him?”

“He wasn’t
interrupting! He was just trying to talk to you while you got
dressed!” Amanda buried her face in her hands and grunted. “What
is with you? You have time to spend on everything else in life, and
you just treat Ethan like he’s an inconvenience!”

Edgar turned to
face Amanda. “As far as I’m concerned, he is.”

Amanda gaped at
him.

“You know I’m
not good with kids. You knew that getting into the marriage and you
knew that when you finally convinced me we needed one. You wanted
him, so bad, you deal with him.”

Amanda silently
shook her head, a look of disgust on her face.

“I’ve got a big
job trying to keep this shithole of a country together. Someday
he’ll understand that, and he’ll be able to forgive me.”

“I suddenly
understand why your father never visits.”

Edgar shrugged.
“He may not have done more than provide for us, but it was what he
needed to do. I don’t like him, but I’ve forgiven him.”

“Don’t you
think you should do better for your son?”

“I’m making
sure he has a future to grow up in; isn’t that enough?”

Amanda tilted her
head to one side and thought for a moment. “No, it isn’t. Even
if you spend every waking moment fighting for the future, it may not
come. All we have is the present, and you need to be spending that
present with your son.”

Edgar slipped into
the bathroom and returned a moment later with a lint roller. “Again,
I never wanted him.”

“So why did you
agree to have him?”

As with so many of
Amanda’s questions, this one had no safe answer. Edgar hurriedly
rolled the lint off of his tuxedo jacket and settled on modified
honesty. “Because I knew a kid would make you happy.”

“You’ve never
been that romantic, Ed. Try again.”

She wanted brutal
honesty? He was frustrated enough now to make sure she got it.
“Because I’d have a nice, perfect little family, with a son
involved in soccer and violin and a trophy wife who looked good in
campaign commercials. That romantic enough for you?”

Amanda didn’t
respond for such along time that Edgar looked up to see if she was
still there.

“Well… I guess
that was five years of marriage counseling right there.” She
turned and left the room.

Edgar knew he
should go after her, try to apologize, to try to handle the
situation. It was something a devoted husband should do.

He glanced at his
watch. There was only an hour to go until the president’s annual
September Eleventh Memorial Banquet, and traffic was nearly
impossible since the Metro was shut down.

He should go
after Amanda; there just wasn’t time.

Despite Edgar’s
most liberal estimates, traffic proved a tough beast to beat, and
they arrived at the banquet quite a bit more than fashionably late.

“If we’re
lucky,” he said as a valet drove away with their car, “the
dullest speeches will be over.”

“Mmmm.”

“You’re not
going to be pleasant about this, are you?”

Amanda turned and
walked into the White House.

Edgar shrugged and
followed her.

Inside they were
greeted by politicians and dignitaries, powerbrokers and lobbyists,
men and women rich enough to enjoy- or demand- the president’s
notice. They were all very understanding of the couple’s late
arrival, and helpfully informed them that, no the speeches hadn’t
started yet. Again. And again.

By the time Edgar
had shaken hands and exchanged pleasantries through the crowd and to
the buffet table, he was ready to leave. He looked around, made sure
that he had lost Amanda, and relaxed a little.

“Edgar! So glad
you finally made it! I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

Edgar turned, a
smile already materializing on his tired lips, and saw who had
addressed him. The smile quickly dematerialized. “Oh. It’s
you.”

A skeletal face
peered out from behind an over-burdened buffet plate. “Yes it’s
me. Good to see you, too. Let’s talk.”

“I’d rather
not.” Their last conversation, and the decisions Edgar had made
during it, were still too fresh in his mind.

Mistlethwakey
nodded as he swallowed a finger-sandwich. “Don’t worry; I’ve
been keeping track of the time. I’ve still got two months left.”

“Look, maybe we
should just drop this whole thing, pretend it never happened, find
someone else—“

“No. You said
you’d give me six months, I expect six months. Ask anyone you
want, they’ll tell you I’m a great guy. But you back out on me
on this, and I will get very unpleasant.”

He glared at Edgar,
his eyes dark coals smoldering in an otherwise grandfatherly face.

Edgar returned the
glare, with what he hoped was equal fervor. He wasn’t comfortable
with treason… And yet as he stared into Mistlethwakey’s eyes, he
found himself somehow coming around to the general’s point of view.

“Haven’t seen
him all evening. This morning he said he was feeling a bit queasy,
but he’d never miss this.”

Mistlethwakey
frowned. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Say, isn’t
that your wife over there?” He waved at someone in the crowd.

“You said you
wanted to talk to me about something?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,
that. Well, obviously I can’t topple the government down to your
level in just a day, so of course I have to start elsewhere and build
up.”

Edgar felt the
bottom drop out of his stomach. “What?”

“You can’t
leave, of course, that would look too suspicious. But you, ah, you
might want to get Amanda close by, somewhere where you two won’t
get separated.”

“What’s going
on?”

Mistlethwakey
winked and tapped the side of his nose. “Best if you don’t know.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some other people I need to see…”
He popped another sandwich into his mouth then wondered away and was
quickly lost in the crowd.

Edgar couldn’t
move. He was rooted to the spot, unsure of what to do. His
imagination ran wild with all of the horrors Mistlethwakey could have
planned for the evening. Most of them were probably impossible,
beyond even Mistlethwakey’s ability to perform. But there was one
thing for certain: the Defenders would somehow be involved.

Slowly a resolution
formed within Edgar: he would warn Isaac. He knew of a credible
threat to the president’s safety, and any Secret Service agent he
told would evacuate the president, and the whole problem would be
solved.

Until the questions
started.

Edgar saw the rest
of his life unraveling before him: the truth coming out about his
involvement with Mistlethwakey, the general’s swift downfall, his
own downfall as he was sacrificed to the public as the mastermind
behind the true E.H.U.D. program… years later, sitting in a
maximum security prison, Ethan coming to visit him, asking him why he
had thrown it all away… himself asking why he had missed the call
for greatness, all because he was too afraid to fight for the greater
good of the nebulous future.

So he did nothing.
He left the buffet, found Amanda, and escorted her to a table as the
president finally made his appearance, mounted the dais, and began to
make his speech.

The speech went on
for about ten minutes, heartfelt but rather bland. The president
expressed the same sentiment that had been expressed on every
anniversary since the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks: Sorrow for the
innocent lives lost, respect for those gallant men and women who
sacrificed their lives to save others, righteous indignation against
those who would perform such actions against civilians and, rather
incongruously, a hope that America had learned from these attacks and
would be more humble in the future.

The last bit
bothered Edgar. Despite his position, he wasn’t a particularly
strong patriot, and he certainly wasn’t spoiling for a fight with
any country for any reason. Still, he felt that, since America had
been so wronged in the attacks, it was their right to strike back and
secure peace. Instead, the country had made a submissive reaction,
admitting by deed if not by word that they believed themselves
deserving of international aggression. Of course, that was all
ancient history now, and couldn’t—

“—be prouder to
serve this nation as it grows ever stronger, ever more ready to take
its rightful place in the global community.”

The applause that
greeted the president’s words shook Edgar out of himself, and he
focused back on Isaac.

The president
graciously accepted the applause. “Thank you, thank you all. Now,
I know you’re all probably rather tired of me going on, as I tend
to do, and you’ll want to hear someone a bit more concise and
eloquent. So! Without further ado, I’m proud to introduce my
esteemed colleague Senator Mitchell Terstein.”

The audience
clapped, the president left the dais, and… no one came up.

This was it. Edgar
glanced around, expecting to see someone slipping through a door or a
rifle sliding out from behind a curtain.

The applause died
and a polite silence ensued.

No one came to the
stage.

Edgar was about to
jump up, was about to warn Isaac of his immanent danger, when the
silence changed to excited whispering as someone came on stage. It
was definitely not Senator Terstein.

The newcomer was
short, with a thick beard and stubby, dirty-looking dreadlocks.
Unlike the other male guests in their tuxedos, this man wore layer
upon layer of ragged coats and scarves. He scratched at his large
nose as he approached the podium.

“Um, hello…”
he said experimentally.

The whispers
increased in volume, and Edgar saw several Secret Service agents rush
along the sides of the room, only to abruptly stop some twenty feet
from the dais and stand stock-still.

This really was
it. Edgar knew what this man was, and with that knowledge came
the abrupt closing of Edgar’s window of opportunity. Weather the
plan succeeded or failed, he was in with Mistlethwakey to the end,
now.

“Hello,” the
man said again, and conversation ceased. “My name is, uh, Merv
Lemlin, Private First class, U.S. Army. Not who you expected, but…
uh, after that introduction I’m going to try and be as concise and
eloquent as I can.” Someone in the front row stood. “No
interruptions, please. I promise I’ll be quick.”

The man in the
front row didn’t sit down, but he didn’t move, either. One arm
stood out as if frozen in place.

“Now you all know
of course about the E.H.U.D. system. Damn fine machines, definitely,
but they’re not why I’m here. Reason I’m here is, there’s a
persistent rumor going around the internet that they’re just sort
of a cover for government testing program, trying to improve our
soldiers, you understand?”

The room was dead
silent. Edgar closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable. Beside him,
Amanda reached out and grasped his hand.

“Well, those
rumors were absolutely true. Not accurate, but true. Anyone can
tell you it doesn’t take twenty-five billion to make a wearable
tank; that’s stupid. But it does take that to make super-soldiers.
The Defenders they were called. Same acronym, E.H.U.D., so
disguising purchase orders was easier, but the ‘D’ was
Defenders.”

He paused and
glared at the audience, daring someone to challenge what he said.
Edgar wanted to, but knew it would be suicide to do so.

“Of course, as
bad as super-soldiers is, there’s nothing wrong with it, as
long as you go legal. Take the first two test subjects, for
instance. Two career military boys, get hyped up on the super-serum,
next thing you know, they could kick Captain America’s ass and
force Superman to eat it, too. But the government didn’t stop
there, oh no. The whole last administration—hell, most of this
administration, probably, the president definitely—went ahead
and captured a hundred innocent civilians, and—“ He stopped and
scratched his chin. “Well, I wasn’t a civilian, but I
damn sure weren’t no volunteer. Anyways, they kidnapped us,
tortured us, made us do terrible things to break our wills, then made
supermen out of us, too. And I don’t know why, but here we are on
your doorstep, fifty of the toughest sons of bitches you’d ever
want to meet, and we aren’t happy.”

No one spoke.
Edgar wondered how many were silent out of fear, how many out of
confusion, how many because of who—what—Lemlin was.

“There’s only
one man you have to blame for all this, one man who put together the
bill, one man who got it voted in, one man who stayed with the
project and made sure it went off without a hitch, ready to fuck the
world over and establish the new American order. One man I’m going
to kill tonight. President Isaac Latterndale.”

Those words seemed
to loose something in the room. People suddenly moved, panicked
conversation erupted, the president stood and began to noisily
denounce his accuser.

Edgar watched as
the Secret Service surrounded Isaac and took aim at Lemlin.

Lemlin, smiling,
laughing, reached into his pile of coats, looking for all the world
as if he were going for a gun. It was enough for the Secret Service.
All other sound was drowned out as the agents simultaneously
discharged their weapons.

The echoes died,
the smoke cleared, and there Lemlin stood, smiling and unscathed.
Floating in the air in front of him, some still vibrating, most
glowing, were nearly a hundred bullets.

Amanda’s hand
tightened on Edgar’s arm. The audience stared in silent
fascination as the bullets began to drift together, glowing brighter
where they touched and fused into one another. Soon Lemlin stood
behind a head-sized sphere of lead. He quirked an eyebrow and the
sphere began to spin, faster and faster, until—

“Get down!”
Edgar yelled, kicking over the table and dragging Amanda down behind
it. He didn’t see what happened, but he heard a sharp crack, wet
ripping sounds, strangled screams.

Cautiously, he
looked over the edge of the table and saw Lemlin leering at the
mangled pile of agents surrounding the president. A few of them must
have been alive, because more bullets poured from the pile, but they
all swung wide, veering off into the crowd and burying themselves in
fleeing guests.

Agents began to
rise into the air, only to be brought back down with bone-breaking
force.

Edgar ducked back
down. “You stay here; I’ve got to get to the president.”

“No!”

He looked over his
shoulder at his wife, registering for the first time the fear in her
eyes, the uncontrolled panic. He suddenly realized how strange and
confusing this must be for someone who hadn’t been aware of the
Defender’s capabilities. He knew it was all a matter of
genetic manipulation and careful training, something mundane that had
gone on for years. As far as she knew, this was something
magical, satanic, completely outside her realm of experience.

This is what it
will be like for the whole world, he realized. When they see this,
they’ll panic. That’s what Mistlethwakey wanted.

Edgar grasped
Amanda’s hands and looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he
said, hoping she believed him. “But I’ve got to do something.
I’ve got to try to save the president.”

Despite her
protests, Edgar crawled out from behind the table and sat up on his
knees, trying to find Mistlethwakey. He was ready to stop this. He
didn’t care about personal ambition, he didn’t care about world
peace; he just wanted this to end.

“He’s not going
to die now, you know.”

Edgar ducked down
and found Mistlethwakey right beside him.

“It’s over, I’m
through!”

“Yeah, well… if
you want to get lost in this shitstorm, go right ahead. I’m sure
your son will enjoy watching the media tear you apart.”

Mistlethwakey
gripped the president on either side of his face and stared intently
at him. “Isaac, if we don’t use them, we die. We could
maybe—maybe—starve him out; wait till he’s too weak to
do this. But that could take hours.”

Isaac pulled his
head away and glared at his two erstwhile saviors. “If I use the
scramblers, I lose all deniability.”

Edgar leaned
forward. “Deniability is no good if we’re dead.”

The president
closed his eyes for several agonizing seconds. “Okay. Okay, call
them. I assume you can?”

Mistlethwakey
nodded. “I made sure my name was on the list when we had the
system installed.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out his
mobile, then entered in a quick code. “POTUS is in the *MORE
REASERCH REQUIRED* room. We need E.H.U.D.s, we need
explosives or heavy ordnance to get through the door, be careful of
civilians.” He put the mobile away and looked at Edgar. “We
have to get the civilians away from the doors.”

“If we get up
we’ll get shot down!”

“The shit is
hitting the fan, Ed, this is your chance to be someone’s savior.”

Edgar flashed back
on the words Mistlethwakey had used to get him into this—

“What about me?”
the president said.

Mistlethwakey
quirked an eyebrow. “You stay here.”

The tirade from the
dais abruptly changed. “I’m bored now, Isaac. I came for you,
not for your guests. Last chance to be a man about this.”

“Don’t listen
to him.” Mistlethwakey scuttled to a pile of bodies and
frantically sifted through the gore, coming up a moment later with
two pistols. He tossed one to Edgar.

“You distract
Lemlin, I’ll get the doors.”

Laughter came from
the dais. “Time’s up, Isaac.”

The president gave
a yelp of surprise as he began to float out from under his
formerly-human shield. “Bob!” he yelled. “Bob, get me out!”

Mistlethwakey
ignored him and quickly duck-walked towards another table.

Edgar now sat alone
in his own private world, holding the pistol, psyching himself up,
and trying desperately not to notice the floating president. He…
he hadn’t expected such a sudden literalness to Mistlethwakey’s
promise that he would be remembered as a savior.

He didn’t want
this.

From somewhere in
the room, he thought he heard Amanda yell. If she survived this, how
would she remember him? How would Ethan?

Before he could
stop himself, he stood and leveled the pistol at Lemlin. “Merv!”

Lemlin turned his
attention on Edgar, and Isaac grunted as he hit the ground.

“I don’t know
what the hell you are, but this is your only warning: You are
committing an act of war on the United States, and it will be
responded to as such! Cease and desist, and maybe we can talk this
through!” Edgar knew that the pistol trembled; he knew that he
sweated profusely. But he also knew that if he died in this moment,
if he went out facing down the monster, Ethan would forgive him for
anything.

Lemlin sneered at
him. “Seriously?”

Edgar gripped the
pistol with both hands and tried to stand his ground.

“Well, I guess I
can kill one more before I get to Isaac, although to tell you the
truth, I’d really rather not.” With his eyes still on Edgar, he
pointed off towards one wall. “And don’t think I don’t know
about you over by the door. It’s useless; I’ve got ‘em shut.”

For a moment, no
one spoke. The wounded groaned, the frightened wept.

Then the room
shook, and Edgar was thrown to the ground. It seemed like ages later
that he opened his eyes, blinked away tears, tried to stand. He
slumped back to the ground, gripped the edge of a table and tried
again. This time got to his knees before a wave of nausea kept him
from going further. He saw a squad of E.H.U.D.s rushing through the
remains of the main doors. They swam in and out of focus, in and
out, and…

Edgar blinked
furiously and they stabilized. He must have hit his head when he
fell, or been stunned by the shockwave…

The squad of
E.H.U.D.s made it to the dais. Somewhere, deep in the back of his
mind, Edgar realized that the soldiers shouldn’t have gotten that
far if Lemlin was still—

He looked to
Lemlin.

Lemlin was no
longer haranguing the president, was no longer manipulating the
world, was no longer even really standing. He was leaned over,
supporting himself with hands on knees, his breath coming in short
gasps. The scrambler seemed to be working.

The E.H.U.D.s
approached him, one with handcuffs.

No, they couldn’t
take him alive, they just couldn’t. Edgar could see all of
Lemlin’s secrets coming out in the hands of the government, in the
press of… of the press. The buzz of the scramblers was starting to
confuse Edgar. He absently wondered if the E.H.U.D.s were affected,
then remembered the sonic dampening in the helmets.

Sudden movement
refocused his mind—Lemlin was on the move. Lemlin jumped up,
putting his weight behind his elbow and trying to force the nearest
E.H.U.D. to the ground. All the attack succeeded in doing was to
rock the E.H.U.D. back on his heels, but it was enough for Lemlin to
break away. He made it to the edge of the dais before one of the
E.H.U.D.s brought a rifle up and—

Edgar had seen
enough; he lowered himself to the ground and curled into a ball. He
shuddered as the rifle cracked, then closed his eyes and tried to
block out the world.

“Shit! Ow! Will
you stop that, goddammit?” Edgar tried to pull away from the medic
who was attending to him. “I’m fine!”

“I’m sorry,
sir,” the medic said with exaggerated patience, “but if these
aren’t seen to they can easily get infected.”

“Well, don’t
you have someone worse off you can help?”

“No, sir, there’s
plenty of us for everyone.” The medic dabbed some more ointment at
the scratches on Edgar’s forehead, then coated the wounds with a
thick gel. “And that should do it. Just try to keep the area dry,
and don’t remove the gel for at least four—hey!” The medic
flailed his arms and tried to keep his balance as Edgar pushed past
him and out of the little tent they occupied.

Outside the tent
was a disaster. Nearly a hundred of these emergency medical booths
covered the White House lawn, each one swarming with medical staff,
injured party guests, and the occasional reporter. It had been like
this for almost an hour now.

Following Lemlin’s
abrupt death, Edgar found himself being carried outside by rescue
workers operating E.H.U.D. suits. A part of him that wasn’t locked
down with shock was privately proud that he had decided to license
the suit for rescue purposes, but that part quickly fell silent as it
rose over the tables and surveyed the whole ballroom.

The floor was
deeply rutted in places, with blood pooling and congealing in the
depressions. All around were bodies, some moving, most not. He saw
the president in the arms of another E.H.U.D., surrounded by agents,
being hustled through the main door to parts unknown.

Maybe it was a
result of the shock, maybe it was some well of hidden emotion
bubbling up, but the only person he thought of as he looked at the
devastation was Amanda. He desperately wanted to know where she was,
how she was, but he couldn’t force himself to talk.

As he was carried
through the door he spotted Mistlethwakey overseeing the E.H.U.D.s as
they retrieved Lemlin’s body and removed the incriminating little
tubes of the scramblers.

As if he could
sense Edgar’s gaze on him, Mistlethwakey looked up and smiled
briefly.

Edgar wasn’t
sure, but he might have passed out then. He woke up in a small tent,
surrounded once more by screams and whimpers, but also by men and
women in mint-green jumpsuits. One of them approached him and asked
him his name.

Edgar identified
himself, the medic entered the information into a palm-top, and then
began to poke at Edgar’s forehead.

“What the hell
are you doing?”

“I’ve got to
stop the bleeding, sir.”

“What bleeding?”
Edgar reached up and winced as he touched one of the several deep
gashes on his forehead. He didn’t remember getting those, but the
rest of the night was already starting to fade into a nightmarish
dream state, so anything was possible.

“Where’s my
wife?”

“I wouldn’t
know, sir. Please keep still.”

Now Edgar walked
from tent to tent, trying to find Amanda.

Along the way he
passed near the White House’s outer fence and noticed, far down the
street, a veritable wall of humanity. Well, at least security was
keeping the press from getting to close.

Edgar continued
searching, growing ever more concerned as he reached the last of the
tents, becoming afraid that Amanda may be among the white-shrouded
figures that continued to be brought out of the tents at a steady
pace.

The tent flap
pushed aside as a medic left the tent and—there! A quick flash of
a red dress. Edgar pushed inside and rushed to Amanda. “Oh my
God, I thought you were dead.”

She looked up at
him from the cot she sat on, then returned to her previous pose.

“Okay, good?”
Edgar wrapped his arm around her and helped her stand. She continued
nodding as they walked out of the tent.

The medic followed
them. “I’d suggest getting her in to see a doctor; tonight, if
possible, but definitely tomorrow.”

“Okay, yeah.
Hey, do you know if the valet service is still running?”

“No idea.”

“Hmm.”

“Ethan…”
Amanda interjected.

They walked
together for a few minutes, going slowly, heading in a roundabout
manner towards the valet pickup. Now that the adrenaline was wearing
off, Edgar felt the shock really kicking in. Just the thought of
standing up to Lemlin as he had done sent him into a shivering fit.
He could see himself spread on the floor; his head burst open, Amanda
off somewhere else, afraid, dying—

With some effort,
Edgar was able to remind himself that they were alive, they had made
it.

He wondered how all
of this would affect Amanda. To be honest, he wondered how it would
affect him.

Just before they
reached the abandoned valet pick-up, Edgar heard the strains of “Hail
to the Chief.” He tried to ignore it, but the song continued and
he stopped. Beside him, Amanda held tighter to him and shivered. He
dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile.

“Hello?”

“Edgar?” It
was the chief of staff. “Good. We, uh… we weren’t sure you
were alive.”

“Yeah, I’m
still getting over that myself.”

“Well… glad
you’re still alive.”

“Me too. Look,
unless this is important, I’ve got to get Amanda home and—“

“No, no, no.”
There was a hint of hysteria in the Chief’s voice. “The whole
cabinet’s needed. Isaac wants this thing contained and we have to
figure this out and—“

“I can’t.”
Edgar looked down at Amanda. He knew she wasn’t ready to deal with
anything right now, and he suspected he wasn’t either. Seeing
people just… disintegrate in front of you, coming apart in piles of
bone and intestine—

Edgar fought down
the urge to vomit.

“Ethan…”
Amanda muttered.

“Edgar. This is
important. This is the whole fucking country here.” Yes, there
has definitely hysteria there.

Familial duty
warred against state duty, and in the end, Edgar had to admit that
steering the whole country through this mess trumped his personal
trinity.

“I need someone
to get Amanda home. We’re at the valet post now.”

“I’ll send
someone.”

“Good.”

Edgar hung up and
put the mobile away. Gripping Amanda firmly by the shoulders, he
looked deep into her eyes and tried to exude confidence. “Honey?
I know you want—need to get home, and I do too, but I need to go
now—“

Amanda seemed to
snap out of her shock, although not all the way to the real world.
“No! No you can’t leave, don’t you dare leave me—“

“Honey, no, I’m
not leaving you, I’ll be home later, I promised, I just have to
take care of some—“

Amanda, eyes wide
with terror, tried to pull away from Edgar. She tried to claw at
him, and Edgar’s grip changed from one of reassurance to one of
restraint.

A moment later two
soldiers in full E.H.U.D. garb approached them. “Mr. Secretary?”

“No!”

“Yes, that’s—“
he fell to the ground as Amanda shook him off. Instead of running,
she stood in place and took several sobbing breaths.

Edgar climbed to
his feet and gestured toward Amanda. “I need you to get her home.
Get her a cab, something. Our address is public, so there’s no
problem there, okay?”

“Sir.” One of
the soldiers nodded.

“Good.” Edgar
walked towards the White house, then stopped and turned back to
Amanda. “Mandy?” He hadn’t called her that in years. “I
still love you. You know that. I’m not leaving you.”

She didn’t
respond, remaining motionless save for her frantic breathing.

“Mrs.
Latterndale?” one of the soldiers ventured.

She looked at the
soldier, as if noticing him for the first time.

“We’re going to
get you home now, okay?”

She nodded.

Both Amanda and
Edgar turned away then, she to her family, he to his work.

As he walked into
the White House, he knew had had made the wrong decision.

Most of the cabinet
was already gathered when Edgar arrived in the conference room. Some
of them looked up as he entered, the fear on their faces slowly
changing into reverence. They must have seen his confrontation with
Lemlin.

“Good,” Isaac
said, not looking up from the table. “Everyone’s here; let’s
start.”

Edgar gestured at
the empty seats around the table. “Where’s everyone else, then?”
In his mind, more white shrouded figures were being brought out of
the tents.

There was a burst
of nervous giggling from Eli Rosencrantz, the press secretary. He
pulled his tie out from under his jacket and pointed to a brown
stain. “That’s the treasurer!” He laughed again, then curled
in on himself and began to sob.

“Sit down,”
Isaac muttered. “We have a lot to do. I just want to go to sleep,
but we’ve got shit to do.”

Edgar pulled out a
chair and sat. He took a quick census of who was there. Assuming
the speaker and the president pro tempore were still alive, Edgar was
now fourth in line. A shudder moved across his body as he recognized
the nature of the calculation he had just made.

Movement in a
corner of the room caught his eye and he saw Mistlethwakey standing
by the door. Two months left, five people to go. It was too late to
pull out. He had to talk to Amanda about this, assuming she would
still talk to him.

“Bob,” the
president said. “What happened out there?”

Mistlethwakey moved
further into the room and sat down at the table. “Well, he was
definitely one of the Defenders—“

“Goddamn it!”
Isaac slammed his fist down on the table and glared at Mistlethwakey.
“You think I don’t know that? This is the second time a
Defender’s gone rogue on us, and don’t you dare give me
that ‘it somehow failed’ shit! Someone is deliberately doing
this, deliberately trying to bring this whole thing crashing down on
us!”

All eyes turned to
Mistlethwakey.

He shrugged. “It’s
possible.” His eyes began to wander around the room.

This couldn’t be
happening. Edgar tried to take in Mistlethwakey, usually so calm and
collected, now looking hunted. Could it be that using Lemlin had
tipped his hand? The thought of Mistlethwakey being found out and
his whole plan dissolving delighted Edgar right up until he realized
that when—if—Mistlethwakey fell, he would be along for the
ride.

“Bob?”

Mistlethwakey
sighed. “Okay, yeah, there might be the possibility of sabotage.”

There was a
collective groan from everyone except Edgar and Eli. Eli continued
to giggle nervously to himself; Edgar tried to fight nerves. This
had to be part of Mistlethwakey’s plan.

“Details, Bob,”
the vice president quietly prompted.

Mistlethwakey
folded his hands in his lap and stared pointedly at the VP. “Shortly
before we began the release phase there were, ah, complications. One
of our scrubbers expressed reservations about what he was tasked with
doing.”

“Christ,”
someone muttered.

It took all Edgar’s
strength to resist snorting at Mistlethwakey’s understatement. The
scrubber’s “reservations” had resulted in a bloodbath. He
hadn’t seen pictures, but he imagined it had looked something like
what he had seen that night—

“Are you all
right?” Julia asked.

Edgar shuddered and
nodded. “I just fell, uh, I thought I was going to—“

“Yeah.” It was
clear from her tone that Julia had had her own struggles with nausea
that night.

The VP shifted in
her seat and tapped the table to refocus the room’s attention.
“Names, Bob.”

“The scrubber was
Captain Fendleton.”

“What?” The
president looked up, eyes wide with surprise. “Allen? No. He was
a good soldier. Hell, he was the one who gave us the idea for this
thing.”

Mistlethwakey
shrugged. “I guess he didn’t like the way we implemented his
ideas. Anyway, we don’t know if it was actually him.”

Isaac rolled his
eyes. “Okay, well, he’s a lead, anyway. Get him in here and
let’s ask him.”

Again,
Mistlethwakey seemed evasive.

Isaac sighed and
buried his face in his hands. “What now?”

“Allen’s dead.”

The president
didn’t respond. Neither did Mistlethwakey. No one in the room
moved.

Perhaps Edgar
should jump in and spin his own story of what had happened to their
erstwhile saboteur.

Almost as if
Mistlethwakey knew what Edgar was thinking, he shook his head
slightly and took the lead. “He killed himself about a year ago,
shortly after we finished the scrubbing. Simple overdose. I guess
his conscience got in the way.”

The president
rounded on Edgar. “Why am I the last one to hear about this, hmm?”

Edgar spread his
hands and tried to look innocent. “This is the first I’ve heard,
too. I only know as much as Bob tells me.” It pained him slightly
to shift the blame like this; he didn’t want Mistlethwakey turning
on him. He plowed on anyway. “If he chooses to keep this secret,
I can’t tell you about it.”

“Gee,”
Mistlethwakey said, “wouldn’t it be great if you could trust your
boss not to give you up as a scapegoat whenever he’s antsy?”

“Fuck antsy.”
Edgar pointed an accusing finger at the general. “Chuskus was a
fluke, maybe, but this? No, this is too big a problem. If you
suspected this, or had intel that this was possible, you should have
told us.”

The president sat
up. “You’re saying Chuskus wasn’t an accident?”

Edgar locked eyes
with Mistlethwakey, trying to gauge how the general would play all of
this. How much could he say before he suddenly became too much of a
liability for the general’s plan? “No, I don’t think she was
just an accident anymore. I think she and Lemlin were both the
result of deliberate sabotage and that something like…” he paused
and rubbed his chin. “Something like tonight could—will
happen again.”

Sighing wearily,
the president slumped deeper into his chair and rubbed his eyes.
“What do we do? Anyone got suggestions?”

Mistlethwakey
cleared his throat.

“Yes?”

“Allen only
scrubbed half of them, but for all we know he could have contaminated
the whole bunch. We have to scrap the program and collect the
Defenders.”

“WHAT!”

“And it won’t
be easy, either. We can assume that Allen altered their programming,
so they won’t return to us with open arms and innocent intentions.
We have to actively consider them as all rogue.”

Silence stretched
across the room for nearly a minute. “Get out.”

“No sir, I’m
serious. The defenders are too big of a—“

Everyone flinched
back from the president as he jerked upright and slammed his fists
down on the table. “Get out! Get the fuck out of this office
right now! Go!”

Mistlethwakey
nodded, scooted back from the table, and left. Edgar was sure this
was the first time he had seen the general obey a direct order. He
casually wondered if this reaction was what he had wanted from the
president.

“Edgar.” Isaac
had returned to his slumped posture. “What do we do?”

“You mean besides
hang Bob out to dry?”

That actually
earned Edgar a chuckle. “Much as I would like to… No, I’m
together enough to remember that he saved my life tonight. I know
who my friends are.”

Edgar very much
doubted that, but didn’t say anything.

“Besides, he’s
more dangerous against us than with us. The minute we out him, he
starts spilling everything he has on us. So,” he looked up at
Edgar, “what do we do?”

Edgar took a deep
breath. “Only one thing we can do.” He tapped the table for a
moment, then gestured over his shoulder to the room’s main door.
“We kill the program. I don’t think we can keep it much of a
secret now. The Defenders are loose. The best we can do is
collecting them and hope the public doesn’t start demanding blood.”

“No.” Isaac
shook his head and tapped the table lightly with the flat of his
hand. “No. We can’t kill this.”

“What do you
mean, ‘no’? You’re the one who’s always hated this program—“

“The time to kill
it was before, back when it was a secret. Now the people know, or at
least have reason to doubt us, and anything we do to acknowledge the
program will just be an acknowledgment of guilt.”

“So you just want
us to walk around with our heads up our asses and wait for the next
time a rogue Defender tries to off you?”

“Next time we’ll
be ready. Next time, we’ll have security, next time we’ll have
the scramblers—“

“Yeah, no, that
won’t work. See, we had the scramblers this time, and we used
them. The scramblers—which are specifically designed as Defender
deterrents—are now public knowledge. The public knows about them,
the program’s blown. We can’t pretend the cat isn’t out of the
bag on this one.”

Isaac glared at
him. “We can and we will. We acknowledge nothing Lemlin said, we
jump on top of the story, and we ride this out as long as we can. We
stay alive, and no one goes to jail. Agreed?”

Edgar threw his
hands up and slumped back in his chair. “This is stupid. I can’t
believe you’re doing something this stupid.”

Julia leaned
forward and raised her hand fractionally. “There are ways to fix
this without going public. We just reprogram the rest of them, make
sure they stay low. Get what’s-his-name, the other scrubber,
involved.”

Before she
finished, Edgar began shaking his head. “He’d have to be pretty
close to them. Anyway, I’ll say it again: we can’t do this thing
on the sly. It. Is. Over.”

The president
ignored him. “Eli, time for you to earn your paycheck.”

At the far end of
the table, Eli was still engrossed in his silent sobs.

“Eli!”

Eli looked up and
tried to smile.

“We need you,
okay? We need a story for Lemlin, alright?”

Eli thought for a
moment, then nodded. “Okay, yeah, he’s, um, he’s…”

The room grew
silent as Eli thought and Edgar fumed. The silence was quickly
broken when the vice president gasped. “We’re in the White
House.”

All eyes focused on
her.

“Someone just
tried to kill you in the White House, and we’re still here.”

“Damn straight.”
Isaac pounded the table and struck a proud pose. “The SS tried to
evacuate me, but I’m not hiding after this. No, the president
doesn’t go skulking off and hiding after some nut tries to kill
him!

“Shit.” The VP
looked around in confusion and stood. “You’re—you’re crazy,
Isaac. You can’t do this. You’re here at ground zero with who
knows how many Defenders out there and you refuse to take the only
sensible course of action.” She shook her head and blinked several
times. “I didn’t sign up for this. I—I—“ She didn’t
finish her sentence, but everyone knew what she was thinking about.
“I’m done. I hereby resign, whatever.”

She pushed her
chair under the table and walked towards the door.

“Hey, where are
you going? You can’t just leave!”

“And you can’t
just ignore the obvious, Isaac! You want the Defenders coming after
you, you want to get killed, fine. But I didn’t sign up for this,
I didn’t. Don’t worry, I won’t talk to anyone; you’re all
safe from me. I didn’t sign up for this.” She returned to her
brisk walk, and a moment later was gone.

At least two down.
Edgar swallowed, and wondered if he should follow her.

The president
snorted and gestured in the former vice-president’s direction. “We
don’t need her any way. Don’t need pessimism, don’t need
undermining.” He nodded to himself. “It won’t be pretty, but
we can win this.”

It was over. Isaac
wouldn’t listen to reality; he was making his own now. Edgar was
just taking up space. He stood and headed for the exit.

“Where are you
going?” Isaac’s voice was low and icy.

“Home. Amanda’s
worried, it’s late, and there’s nothing I can do tonight.” He
turned back to the president. “Tomorrow… tomorrow I’ll be here
to do the best I can to get you through this shitstorm. You may not
listen to me, but I’ll try my best.”

Isaac nodded, but
in no other way acknowledged Edgar’s presence.

“Hey. I was
there too, with Bob, trying to save your life. Remember who you’re
friends are.”

“I always do.”

Edgar nodded and
left. As the door closed behind him, he felt a wave of exhaustion
rolling over him.

An arm draped
across his shoulder. He turned to see Mistlethwakey standing next to
him, methodically chewing a pastry.

“Good job in
there,” he said between bites. “I wasn’t sure you could do it,
but you kept him off balance. Plus, I don’t think he really trusts
you now. That’ll come in handy later.” He patted Edgar’s
shoulder. “Just got off the phone with head of security; they’ve
pieced together the president pro tempore; three down.” He patted
the shoulder again and walked away.